By Harvey S. Keh
I was in Naga City over the weekend to witness the inauguration of the Naga City Governance Institute, which is an initiative by the local government of Naga City to promote best practices in local governance all over the Bicol Region.
As we all know, Naga City under the leadership of Mayor Jesse Robredo for the past 18 years has been transformed from a 3rd class city in the 1980s to the queen city of the Bicol Region today.
As a testament to his outstanding leadership, Robredo was one of the first Filipinos to receive the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service which is acknowledged as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. Among those who came for the inauguration were Bert Hoffman of the World Bank, Bill Luz of Ayala Foundation and Prof. Leonor Briones of the UP-National College of Public Administration and Governance.
During the talk of Prof. Briones regarding the challenges that the Bicol region continues to face in terms of uplifting the quality of life of its constituents, I was struck by her presentation of the high poverty rate that the Bicol region has.
According to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), the poverty incidence in the region is at an alarming 51.1% based on its latest statistics which was gathered in 2006.
This means that more than half of the region continues to live below the poverty line or they do not earn enough to satisfy their basic requirements for food, shelter, education and healthcare.
I checked further and saw that the poverty incidence of Sorsogon as a province grew from 43.5% in 2003 to an astounding 55.3% in 2006! In 2003, the NSCB estimated that there were 300,652 poor individuals in Sorsogon but in 2006, this has already grown to 395,434!
I raised this issue since we all know for a fact that Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero who hails from Sorsogon and used to be its Congressman for several years is currently eyeing a run at the Presidency.
Given that he has served as Congressman of Sorsogon and now Senator, it is sad that his province hasn’t had much progress and in fact has continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
One has to wonder if Senator Escudero has the capability to effectively run the country and curb our growing poverty if in fact he can’t help alleviate poverty in his own province.
Given that he was a Congressman whose primary duty is to represent his constituency and enact laws for the country, don’t you think it was also his duty to ensure that the national government agencies provided adequate services to his constituents in Sorsogon? Where did he place his country-wide development fund (CDF)? Sorsogon is not a big province thus, if his CDF was used properly I’m sure that many of his constituents would be enjoying a better quality of life now.
As the saying goes, charity begins at home, the challenge for Chiz is to go beyond lip service and to start to take action to ensure a better quality of life for the people of Sorsogon before he even thinks about running for President. I’m not a big fan of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but I hope that the next time Chiz begins to attack the shortcomings of our present government, it may be good for him to first look at his own backyard and work proactively towards creating genuine positive human development in the life of his constituents.
Harvey S. Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo School of Government and is the Lead Convenor of Kaya Natin! A National Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership. Comments are welcome at harveykeh@gmail.com.
Source: Statistics gathered from http://www.nscb.gov.ph/ru5/updates/poverty/poverty.html .
October 15th, 2009 at 9:21 am
ask yourself!
ask andaya!
tanga!
October 9th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Francis Escudero hadn’t receive PDF eversince! How he could this be? Ask Andaya!
August 29th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Is it possible that his CDF all went to Grace Lee? If so, then in my view, that is still money well spent.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
@Edgardo Marinas,
I suggest you read this article ( http://hindiakoto.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/the-relocated-jashs/ )so you’ll have a basic information about what Lito Atienza did when he was still a mayor.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
i would just like to say that if ur with the opposition the chances of you getting your cdf is virtually nil. i would think that since mr harvey keh has been observing our political system the last few years he would knw this by now or is it bec their group is pushing for another presidentiable? just a little background on sen escudero.. chiz was 1st elected during the 1998 election,he was with the administration of erap for 3 years and if it can be proven that his cdf for the 3 years dat he was with the admin was not use wisely or was use to enrich somebody then thats the time to attack him..but since 2004 he was already identified with fpj so i doubt if he was among the lucky congressman who wer in gma good graces…btw,so what if ur identified with danding cojuangco? dont believe everything u hear n read..